Black paint.

A grainy texture from somewhere out of my control.

The rich brown flop of my dog's ear on the black ripstop camera sack.

The suggestion of silvery light.

Every landscape a palimpsest – I reach into the past

and reacquaint myself with some memories, wallow there for a few moments. In the thick memory mud.

Every landscape is a memory.

I think I looked outwards as a boy. Took in with better care the fields, tracks, stiles and pylons of our weekend walks than I did the landscape of myself.

The Nature of Loss itself is in every landscape. The valley of Lost Souls. The valley of Dad.

The distance between now and the memory and all the strange sadness of that distance. How do I measure it? In paintings.

The distance of looking.

The difference between two paintings of the same view that are supposed to look identical. What am I measuring? The way I change, feel, move. In fact the way I live, move towards death.

I suddenly see Difference and Distance as the same word. Of course.

Black paint.

The golden light of a November afternoon that pulls my insides out through my throat.